I think this battle is a good example of just how good Darkrai really is. My opponent tried to play around it with a SleepTalk Terrakion and a Ho-Oh, but to no avail. Bad Dreams is really the clincher, since it allows Darkrai to slowly wear down its checks every time it gets a sleep off. I had several misplays and still won.

Heat Wave is obviously there for Ferro, Scizor and Genesect, and the latter two are OHKO'd after Rocks with given EV's (Noctowl survives a CB Bullet Punch from Scizor). Noctowl doesn't take Nasty Plot Thunderbolts in case you mispredict, but it can take one (then again, being Scarflocked into Dark Void doesn't do Darkrai any favours against Noctowl). Noctowl is as bulky as things can get if it comes to having Imsomnia/Vital Spirit access, but it is PU with a reason; its specially defensive stats and typing aren't sufficient to be a true special wall and is dead against everything with a physical attack, no matter the tier.

Magic Coat on random mons is a lot of fun right now since people love to spam spore and dark void without thinking. Resttalk kyogre is everywhere, and both forms of girantina are dropping since it's weak to dark pulse, which is a shame since its a great counter to breloom and heracross.

Truth be told, 3 crits a d tail miss and a dark void miss isn't just a dark void miss

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I'd had 3 dark voids miss in a row, 7 focus blasts, 2 stone edges, many other things. Trust me, luck doesn't usually smile on me. It's all about odds, it's how the game works, it isn't fair, but it's how it goes

Um guys. I can already tell how horrible this suspect round is going to be. I am sorry to say, but I am not going to participate in this round. It will be entirely too painful to ladder under these conditions. It is essentially the moody suspect round all over again, with the broken clause going on EVERY MOTHERFUCKING TEAM. I also will not be trying the broken ability, because I bet that at least 25% of the games will be decided upon by d void miss, or speed ties.

Okay. Now that players have started to realize Sleep Clause is gone (for now), matches have been a lot more interesting. I've played many games that came down to who outpredicts who, and so far the metagame has been a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. Random Pokémon are now carrying Sleep Talk or Lum Berry, so Darkrai is a lot harder pressed than before to find a free turn to hope that Dark Void misses. Darkrai pairs well with Deoxys-S and Heracross, from what I've found. Hera is still the best Darkrai counter in the game, and now that Darkrai is on most competent teams, Hera is a cool check to some odd Pokémon that Darkrai hates such as Terrakion, Arceus, and opposing Darkrai. In return, Darkrai can handle every Ghost-type with ease, potentially opening up a late-game Heracross sweep.

252 Attack Deoxys-S is great because it can kill Genesect with Fire Punch, or at least keep it from coming in again with a layer of hazards. It can also Taunt or even Magic Coat opposing Darkrai to keep them from using Sub and Dark Void. I have to say that I was never much of a fan of Deoxys-S until this suspect test, but it's been working great as a suicide lead. Lum Arceus was a thorn in my team's side, because I elected not to have a spinblocker due to Darkrai. Extremespeed Rayquaza too.

So now about that Sleep Clause... I am torn about whether or not it should be banned. It clearly recentralizes the metagame around dealing with Darkrai (or Smeargle?), but the defining difference in philosophy of Ubers versus the "real" tiers is that centralization of the metagame is not a good reason for something to be banned. Sure Darkrai is centralizing, but so is Kyogre, Normal Arceus, and Ghost Arceus. The big question to me is whether the No Sleep Clause metagame is so much less enjoyable or competitive as to warrant reintroducing Sleep Clause, and I'm leaning ever-so-slightly towards yes.

So many of my games have come down to a Darkrai vs. Darkrai showdown. The most common Darkrai set I've seen is 252 SpA / 252+ Spe @ Leftovers with Dark Void / Dark Pulse / Substitute / Focus Blast. Whoever comes out ahead suddenly has a huge advantage. Similarly, two Deoxys-S leads facing each other basically have to play chicken with Magic Coat and Taunt. These mirror matchups are not new, but they have been happening annoyingly often. It's still far from turning entire games into rock-paper-scissors, but it feels like you can't make a wrong move or else you're playing one Pokémon down, and that Pokémon was your best Pokémon.

A lot of top players seem to like matches that hinge on a crucial outprediction, so what's the problem? The rest of the aftermath. Dark Void has 80% accuracy. It's good, but relying on it is asking for trouble. Sometimes my opponent with a Choiced Pokémon predicted correctly and chose Sleep Talk, only to have Dark Void miss. Games have been pretty wild lately with the hax from 3- and 1-turn sleeps, Dark Void misses, Focus Blast misses, and loads of crucial mispredictions. With a layer or two of hazards up, a single missed play or instance of hax stings a lot.

All this is nothing new to Ubers obviously, but having multiple Pokémon asleep for 1 to 3 turns (with the counter resetting when switched in), THEN the lack of Sleep Clause on top of all the stuff we had to deal with before is really pushing it. Sleep Clause is less necessary than Moody Clause, but I think it twists the metagame slightly more than the lack of OHKO Clause. I seriously doubt Sleep Clause will be done away with, because I see it as amplifying what already was "wrong" with Ubers: centralization and hax. Not that I see my vote mattering much, in the end. So far this metagame seems really unpopular if people don't even want to go for reqs this round...

P.S. I'm pretty sure this has been used for another suspect test, but I thought this was the obvious song choice:

Sigh... everyone is complaining about the absense of Sleep Clause. Please don't stop this suspect test; after I qualify, I will get a tiering contributor badge (iirc). The metagame does not suck. I have been having more fun than ever since it is more challenging to ladder and get voting requirements this time. Use Lum Berry Arceus or Choice Band Ho-Oh (with Sleep Talk) if you are worried about Darkrai. Also... Darkrai isn't the main problem; it is Smeargle. Has anyone caught onto this? Smeargle can now put multiple Pokemon to sleep, so it does not have to worry about its SmashPass strategy getting ruined as often as it would have in the past. I love lulling multiple Pokemon to sleep with my Substitute Darkrai. I encourage all of you to try it! It is a perfectly legit strategy. The most powerful sleep abusers are: Substitute Darkrai and SmashPass Smeargle! Anyway, I don't see a huge difference on the ladder other than the army of Darkrais. My teams work as well as they have done in the past. It's no big deal.